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MORE REVENUE FOR EDUCATION 
231 IN ALABAMA 

>y 1 




AN ADDRESS 

Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the 

Alabama Educational Association 

Birmingham, Alabama, 

April 9-11, 1914 



WM. F. FEAGIN 

// 
Superintendent of Education 

Montgomery, Alabama 



A Survey of the State's Educational Conditions 
and Suggestions for Their Betterment 



MORE REVENUE FOR 

SOME one has said that the school is the 
cash, for manhood rather than for mone 
zens of Alabama for many, many year 
a most drastic constitutional inhibition 
bama has really caught the breath of a 
new ambitions and ideals, and I come to you thi 
patriotism, with all the zeal of enthusiasm, in t 
your consciences, and your conscience, if you pl< 
she ought to be, we must have, — m the language 

I believe that the powers that be are ready 
when we can once give them the assurance tha 
creased to a maximum, and with this in mind, 1< 

"Three trades are ga 
Religion, politics, an; 
All others are by ca 
Explained by those 
But every worldly, t 
Can tell you how to 
Some one has said that God first made idic 
immemorial tradition that school teachers are i 
has blocked the progress of education all tnes 
The world has thought of us, too, as an ill- 
wrote the following explanation: _ . 

"It was the most ignorant, vicious ne 

standing army more than a school teaci 

of a surgical operation. I had rather p< 

such a school as that." 

The trustees, however, made their report 

"We don't want you to send us any n 

one was the limit. We have had enough 

with manners and learning, for the dist: 

Did it ever occur to you that the world ij 

And yet, my friends, as I look into your j 

choicest men and women,— I can but believe t 

udicial, and an attempt to conceal its own self 

I had my first training in a one-teacher s 

teacher had its beginning in a one-room school 

and for the extraordinary term of three sen 

have had personal experience in almost every 

teacher, patron, citizen, tax-payer, and office-J 

very plainly tonight in this family circle and c 

footing to advise about a question of the most 

one of us. 



CATION IN ALABAMA 

itution that stands for character rather than for 
d under that suave and soothing delusion the citi- 
e been lulled into peaceful repose and slumber by 
t if I do not mistake the times, my friends, Ala- 
life, is facing a new point of view and is stirred by 

ming, fellow teachers, with all the earnestness of 
pe that I may drive home upon your consciousness, 
the fact that if we are ever to put Alabama where 

Dloyed above, more cash, more money, more revenue. 

^e us money as freely as they have given criticism, 
te will be reduced to a minimum and efficiency in- 
turn the searchlight on ourselves for a minute. 

>r every critic fool, 

ming school. 

hest, 

mderstand them best; 

tic leech, 

and preach and teach." 
practice and then made — school teachers. The 

ctical, one-sided, deluded, misguided, pitiable cranks 

rs. 

ered class. When a certain teacher left a school, he 

rhood that I ever saw. They need a missionary or a 
Why, you couldn't give those children an idea short 
rock on the road the rest of my days than to teach 



mlldozing, broncho-busters for a teacher. The last 

is rough, cross ways and manners. We want one 

ron't stand for any other kind any more." 

imes fair in its judgment? 

tonight, — the faces of three thousand of Alabama's 

le estimate the world has put upon us has been prej- 

3S and lack of sympathy. 

in this my native state. My first experience as a 
le enormous, extravagant salary of $25.00 a month 
c months. During the years of my very brief life, I 
e of educational activity in the state, — as student, 
\ You will pardon me, then, if I make bold to speak 
ence in which we have come together on the same 

interest to this great commonwealth and to every 



EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 



> 



SiIRST of all, let me say that any fair survey 
I of what has been accomplished along edu- 
cational lines in Alabama will show that 
progress in this field has been remarkable 
when interpreted in the light of conditions that 
have attended her history. Her wonderful nat- 
ural and material resources have made her prog- 
ress in recent years most phenomenal, and have 
added to the complexity of the problem of adjust- 
ing her educational scheme to her expanding 
wealth and ideals. 

Again, education, like theology and law, has 
always been so circumscribed by precedent that 
the problem of keeping her educational machin- 
ery apace with her industrial institutions has 
been further complicated. 

My predecessors in office have done heroic 
work, — patriotic work, if you please, and I wish 
here and now to say that any seeming uplift that 
may come to educational affairs and interests 
during my term of office will be largely a contin- 
uation and maturation of their policies, and 
therefore due much more to their initiative and 
foresight than to any special contribution I may 
hope to make. In fact, this administration must 
succeed or fail in proportion as it witnesses the 
consummation of those major policies for which 
my predecessors have so faithfully and untiringly 
planned and wrought. 

And yet, in the face of the great advances in 
our educational facilities and in the qualifications 
of our teachers, and notwithstanding an expand- 
ing course of study that covers the entire range 



of our "educational ladder," our educational de- 
velopment has lagged behind our social and in- 
dustrial life. The gang-plow, the self-binding 
reaper, the steam-engine, the electric-car, the 
aeroplane, — in fact, even the agricultural ma- 
chine in the humblest field, displays many more 
evidences of improvement than the one-room 
school hard by, which is still the prevailing, time- 
honored and cherished type. 

They have told us over and over again that it 
makes little difference what kind of system you 
have, it all depends on the teacher. Far be it 
from me to even seem to discount the worth of 
my fellows, but no matter how well trained our 
teaching force may be, it can never do its best 
work without machinery, and in these modern 
times, the better the machinery the better the 
quality of the work. The chauffeur is needed to 
drive the car, to be sure, — but where is the 
chauffeur so reckless or so daring as to drive the 
auto across the country at a thirty-mile-per-hour 
clip without the machinery and the appliances 
which bring it under his control? All the men in 
America could not dig the Panama Canal with 
the machinery of half a century ago, but by care- 
fully evolving instruments and machinery, to- 
gether with the trained workers behind the ma- 
chines to manipulate and control them, we 
brought it to pass that a comparatively small 
number of men was able to accomplish the task 
ahead of time and within the amount appropri- 
ated. 

We must remember, too, that education is an 
ever-expanding, mobile, active, living, dynamic 
thing, and that the machinery and the policies of 
yesterday must undergo the white-hot tempera- 
ture of public opinion and criticism, public need 
and national good, if it is to serve efficiently the 
world in its day. And it is the veriest display of 
selfish conceit on the one hand or a confession of 
the grossest ignorance on the other, for us as 
teachers and school officials to be satisfied with 
anything short of the most efficient system that 

3 



can be worked out in the light of educational his- 
tory and progress. 

There was a time when it was thought that the 
only way to shovel dirt was merely to ,shovel 
dirt; but by careful study and experimentation 
it was found that the best results could be ob- 
tained by employing a shovel carrying twenty- 
one pounds of material; further, that the number 
of movements used in handling the dirt could be 
very greatly reduced. The Bethlehem Steel 
Works was able, under the new plan, to accom- 
plish with one-hundred-forty men as much work 
as five hundred under the old plan, each laborer 
under the new plan handling fifty-nine tons per 
day rather than sixteen, earning $1.88 per day in 
lieu of the former $1.15, and at a cost of handling 
each ton of 3 1/3 cents instead of 7 1/5 cents as 
before; and incidentally the company was able to 
save $75,000 per year thereby. 

The modern bricklayer, in the light of scientific 
tests, has been taught to lay three-hundred-fifty 
bricks per hour instead of one-hundred-twenty 
bricks in the past. Instead of the eighteen 
movements of his father, the modern bricklayer 
does the work with only five. 

The balls in our ball-bearing machinery wer< 
formerly inspected by placing several of the pol- 
ished balls on the back of the hand in the crease 
made by pressing two fingers together and in 
minutely examining these balls, as they were 
rolled over and over until the defective balls, ir- 
regular, soft, and fire-cracked, were detected and 
discarded. The girls employed as inspectors 
worked ten hours and more a day, and because 
of the extreme nervous tension, much of the sup- 
posed time engaged in work was of necessity 
spent in idleness. After careful observation and 
study, it was found that the girls could not do 
their best work for more than one-and-one-fourth 
hours continuously; therefore, at the end of that 
time appropriate periods of relaxation were 
given, and as a result, thirty-five girls were able 



creased to eight and one-half hours. The girls 
were given two days of rest each month on full 
pay, and the cost of inspection was substantially 
decreased. 

If we were to apply the same scientific man- 
agement, the same test and measure of efficiency, 
to our educational machinery and effort, would 
we not have to admit that Alabama is still work- 
ing away under an antiquated and out-grown 
educational system? 

The newest word in education today is "sur- 
vey," and I am going to ask you now to join me, 
if you please, in a survey of the real conditions 
that prevail in Alabama, in order that we may 
have some definite convictions about the need 
for more revenue. 

Think it over as we will, the fundamental con- 
dition of improving our schools is first of all a 
better teaching force. A boy who stood an ex- 
amination in geography one day was required to 
take an examination in grammar on the succeed- 
ing day. For some reason or other, he carried 
over into the latter test some of the '"cram" that 
he had stuffed for the former. The question was: 
"Name and describe the zones." "There are two 
zones," said he, "the masculine and the feminine. 
The former is either temperate or intemperate, 
and the latter is either frigid or torrid." In this 
seemingly ludicrous and meaningless answer, 
there is much to make us pause. If we are to 
have trained, methodical, common-sense, busi- 
ness-like teachers who are to take the lead in 
community life and progress, our institutions of 
learning must recast their courses and vitalize 
their training. Boys and girls must be taught 
the things they need to do as well as the things 
they need to know. Instead of a barren profes- 
sion, teaching must become a real calling, a serv- 
ice, if you please, much more dignified in char- 



acter, much more permanent in tenure, and much 
more remunerative in returns. 

This means better salaries, longer terms, 
higher social station, and the utter rout and un- 
doing of the itinerant tramp teacher. Better sal- 
aries, — yes. Any exhaustive study of teachers' 
salaries will show that they have been to all in- 
tents and purposes decreased since the beginning 
of this century. A position which fifteen years 
ago paid $600 is paying in purchasing power to- 
day the equivalent of $416. Dr. Robert C. 
Brooks, the Executive Secretary of the N. E. A. 
Committee which prepared a report for the U. S. 
Bureau of Education, has shown that based upon 
prices in 1897, wholesale prices in 1911 had in- 
creased 44% over the year 1907, while retail 
prices in the same time had increased 50%, and 
that there has been a total increase in retail 
prices since 1897 of 62%. Suffice it to say that 
if we cannot fill our school houses with better 
teachers and better paid teachers, we might as 
well nail up the doors. 

A second fundamental need that more revenue 
will relieve, is better attendance. For ail these 
years we have relied upon voluntary patronage, 
the whims and caprices of parents, and we have 
a vivid picture of its results in our annual rec- 
ords. Of the 727,297 pupils of school age in Ala- 
bama, 428,625 were enrolled in our public schools 
last year, with an average daily attendance of 
259,768. Looking a little more carefully into 
these figures, we find that one out of every four 
of the white children was not in school for a sin- 
gle day, and the three enrolled attended for an 
equivalent of only eighty-five of the one-hundred- 
thirty-three days that the schools were open; and 
that one out of every two of our negro children 
was not in school for a single day, and the one 
enrolled attended only sixty-one days out of the 
ninety-seven days the schools were open to him. 
These figures go a long way toward explaining 
our standing in the report of the Russell Sage 
Foundation, which has been published from one 

6 



end of the continent to the other, to our own 
embarrassment and humiliation. 

I have an unbounded faith that the very slow 
but steady progress we are making from year to 
year in the light of an enlightened public senti- 
ment, will sooner or later, somewhere and some 
time, solve this problem for us. In fact, if Ala- 
bama should continue to decrease her illiteracy 
in the coming decades by just the same number 
she has reduced it in the last census period from 
1900 to 1910, we would get rid of our illiterates 
in just sixty years, but to depend upon such long- 
delayed relief, I think you will agree, is suicidal 
to the state and fatal to children unfortunate 
enough to have indifferent, sordid, or grasping 
parents. 

There are still those who would question the 
state's right to compel attendance. The state 
has no right to levy and collect the three-mill 
constitutional tax and make additional appropria- 
tions for the purpose of educating her children 
and then permit that purpose to be defeated by 
indifferent and selfish parents. The parent has 
rights, — yes, but the helpless child has rights, 
too, society has rights, and the state has rights. 
No one denies that the state has the right to 
compel the parent to feed and clothe his child, 
and to compel the parent to fight for his country 
and shoot him if he should desert. No one ques- 
tions the right of the state to carry the law- 
breaking child to the reformatory or to the jail 
to protect society. Has not the state as much 
right to carry the child to the school house to 
save him from that reformatory or that jail and 
to train him to be a producer rather than a con- 
sumer in his relations to society? 

It is true that we would not have enough school 
houses and teachers to take care of the increased 
attendance should this law go into effect instan- 
ter; but not even the most conservative farmer 
would oppose an increased yield of his cornfields 
merely because his barn might not hold the crop. 



Barns are cheap when compared with the quanti- 
ty of corn they should hold, and school houses are 
trifles when children are to be trained. 

Nor do I have any patience with that prejudice 
which would have hundreds of our white children 
grow up in ignorance lest the aspirations of the 
negro child be awakened, too. Is it better for 
both to remain ignorant or for both to become 
intelligent? Are we ready to admit that the ig- 
norant white man can compete successfully with 
the ignorant negro, but the educated white man 
may not be able to hold his own with the trained 
negro? If the white man's boasted superiority 
is not sufficient to keep him well in advance of 
the ambitious negro, then civilization is a farce 
and education an hallucination. 

We need a modified form of compulsory educa- 
tion. We are not ready for it to the fullest de- 
gree, and to flood our schools with an excessive 
increased attendance by plenary legislation, 
would be to deluge our school accommodations 
and to overwhelm our corps of teachers. Never- 
theless, when we further reflect that the pupil 
who attends the average full term of school in 
Alabama and makes normal progress, will require 
ten years to complete the elementary course of 
seven years of nine months, and then at the age 
of eighteen years, if he began when the school 
was first opened to him, we cannot dodge the fact 
that legislation of this kind should be as rigid 
and as progressive as our ability to provide for it 
will make possible. 

Alabama's third fundamental need upon which 
we may base a claim for more revenue, is better 
organization. Our fathers were agreed that an 
elementary school teaching the three "R's" 
should be established in every community. We 
have introduced many new subjects into the cur- 
riculum, but we are still circumscribed by adverse 
conditions and by our misconceptions of liberal 
culture. The state's call to the school today is to 
give equality of educational opportunity to the 

8 



child of humble talent as well as to the child of 
nble birth, and more; the school must learn to 
discover for the child just what his aptitudes and 
talents are and then train him for maximum ef- 
ficiency in the struggle for survival and advan- 
tage. If the state conducts a school for the law- 
yer in the interest of justice, for the doctor in the 
interest of health and sanitation, for the engineer 
and the farmer in the interest of public utilities 
and better production, is it any less her duty to 
provide suitable training for carpenters, brick- 
layers, plumbers, iron-workers, and the thousand 
other vocations in the so-called "lowly" walks of 
life? 

Everybody knows that the one-room school 
with its overcrowded course of study is not the 
type of institution that can best do the work it 
already has, and to make further requirements 
of it is only to aggravate the tragedy of the sit- 
uation. As it is today, each little school provides 
the cheapest form of book education only, and 
spends itself in preparing its pupils for city life, 
for stations its pupils can never occupy, and for 
positions they will never fill, doing nothing to 
prepare for the activities of country life. 

In the abandonment of the little one-room 
school except in sparsely settled and isolated 
areas; in the organization of intelligently planned 
and wisely located consolidated schools; in the 
making of these consolidated schools the centers 
of a new community life, lies in large part the 
only satisfactory solution we shall ever find for 
the rural school problem and the rural life prob- 
lem as well. Only in such schools can the kind 
of education needed today be given, and only in 
such institutions will we be able to establish those 
rallying-points that will conserve and glorify 
country life. To expect such centers to be volun- 
tarily organized is to expect the impossible. Most 
country folks will have to have an ocular demon- 
stration to convince them of the value of the 
consolidated school. Instead of conducting it on 
the principle of carrying the poor school to the 

9 



child, the consolidated school proposes to reverse 
the process and to carry the child to a larger, 
better school with a broader and higher curricu- 
lum. It takes him from his home in the morning, 
lands him safe and dry at the school on time, and 
takes him back home each evening in the same 
condition. 

The smallest school that can make any ade- 
quate response to present day demands is a 
three-teacher school. First, a principal who is 
skilled in agriculture, in elementary science, and 
in the power of imparting them; second, an as- 
sistant who is versed in domestic science, in man- 
ual arts, and in the power of imparting them; 
third, an assistant who excels in literature, draw- 
ing and music, especially vocal music, and in the 
power of imparting them. This school must have 
a room for each teacher, with a workshop, a 
kitchen, and an auditorium large enough to ac- 
commodate all general community meetings. It 
must be situated on not less than five acres of 
land, preferably more, with ample playgrounds, 
shade trees, flowers, school gardens, and demon- 
stration plats. As part and parcel of it, and in 
order that the teacher may integrate himself into 
the life of the community the year round, it must 
have a home set apart for the use of the princi- 
nal, and he in turn should board his assistants. 
This kind of school means better buildings, the 
consolidation of schools, and the transportation 
of pupils at public expense, — larger investments 
of money, to be sure, but altogether insignificant 
in comparison with the increased and compound- 
ed returns in efficiency and power. 

But you ask is consolidation of schools and the 
transportation of pupils at public expense feasi- 
ble in Alabama ? A questionaire was recently sent 
to every county superintendent in Alabama. 
Among other things asked was the number of 
schools that had united or consolidated during: 



Practically every superintendent in the state 
made reply. Four failed to answer the questions 
either from the fact that they were unable to 
give the information desired, or possibly that 
they failed to note the printed questions on the 
reverse side of the report. Nine said that there 
were no rural centers where consolidation could 
be effected advantageously under present condi- 
tions. Two of this number reported that consoli- 
dation would be practicable if pupils could be 
transported. Another two reported that the peo- 
ple were not quite ready for it yet. 

These reports showed further that twenty- 
eight union or consolidated schools have been 
formed this year, and in more than one hundred 
thirty rural centers representing at least three- 
fourths of the counties of Alabama, the condi- 
tions were declared to be favorable for consoli- 
dation. They mean further, — if, in fact, they 
mean anything at aH, that Alabama is not only 
ready for consolidation, but is even suffering 
from the lack of appropriate legislation needed 
to bring it about. 

Have we any concrete examples of what con- 
solidation can do for a community aside from 
those in some ideal location in some far away 
state that we read about in the school journals'? 
There are three communities in Alabama where 
consolidation with transportation has been put 
into operation. Because of the limitations of 
time I shall only give you the facts in connection 
with the oldest one of these schools, though the 
history of the others would prove equally as in- 
teresting. 

The school in Geiger, Sumter County, was first 
consolidated in September, 1911, and additional 
consolidation was effected two years later. Four 
schools were discontinued, two wagons were em- 
ployed at a total cost of $40 per month, and the 
aggregate distance traveled daily by them was 
fourteen miles. The following excerpts may be 
of interest: 

11 



Value of all buildings before consolida- 
tion $ 800.00 

Value of all buildings since consolidation 16,000.00 

Value of equipment before 150.00 

After 1,500.00 

Annual cost of maintenance before 2,000.00 

Since .' 3,050.00 

Average attendance of all schools be- 
fore 32 

Since 78 

It should be noted that the total enrollment 
before consolidation was 66, or 12 less than the 
average attendance since consolidation. 
Average length of term before consoli- 
dation " 8 months 

Average length of term since 9 months 

How do the patrons like the plan? 

"Well pleased. Not a complaint has been heard 
during the present session and only once have the 
children on a wagon been tardy." 

How do the pupils like the plan? "Tickled to 
death. The wagon doesn't come quickly enough. 
The attendance has been 90% of the enrollment." 

What do you think of the consolidated plan? 
"Its influence has been extended to surrounding 
communities and there has been much more in- 
terest taken in school work and its improvement 
in Sumter County. " 

But I cannot tarry to discuss the arguments in 
favor of consolidation and transportation, for 
they are as self-evident and as axiomatic as they 
are necessary to sound educational policy and 
social economy. Some one has said that the 
reason folks do not mind their own business is 
because they either haven't any mind or they 
haven't any business. The person who is bold 
enough to contend against a reasonable consoli- 
dation law in Alabama is grossly ignorant or 
manifestly unbusiness-like. 

A fourth fundamental need that more revenue 
would provide, is better supervision. 

12 



In every other business, except teaching, this 
need is admitted. We understand full well that 
the shop must have foremen, superintendents, 
and managers. The department store must have 
its heads of departments, its buyers, credit men, 
and managers. The city schools recognized this 
need years and years ago. Have our country 
schools yet recognized it? ■ 

I believe that the office of county superinten- 
dent is the most important one in our educational 
system. Upon his shoulders rests the responsi- 
bility for the life and character of country 
schools. Right here in Alabama there are many 
of them who have thoroughly demonstrated a 
faithfulness, a zeal, an enthusiasm, and a devo- 
tion that would make us resent any legislation 
looking toward narrowing the field of his influ- 
ence. Not only will I not lend my assistance to 
any measure that would interfere with the power 
of the county superintendent to influence for 
good the schools under his supervision, but I will 
oppose with all my might every measure which 
I believe will so hinder him in his work. 

At the same time, we must not forget that the 
county superintendent is the integral part of the 
great common school system of the state and as 
a part of this system, he is enlarged and in- 
creased in his power for service whenever the 
system is so enlarged. 

Never before in the history of our educational 
system has the call of the hour been so urgent 
for leaders of adequate preparation, deep social 
insight, large executive ability, and intense per- 
sonal power for the supervision of rural educa- 
tion. And such men, once selected, ought to be 
given the same tenure, salary, and power which 
their brother city superintendents now enjoy. 

Not until our counties cease electing their su- 
perintendents of education by popular vote and 
begin to manage their schools as a unit can the 
rural school fairly compete with the city school 
in its service to the state. 



Under present conditions the would-be county 
superintendent of Alabama must first become a 
resident and a voter, must gain a standing in the 
dominant political party, must win in the pri- 
mary, must outdo his opponent in the election, 
must pay his political assessment and campaign 
expenses, — all for a temporary and poorly paid 
political job, which, if he would hold even while 
he serves the people and the schools, he must 
always keep his political eye open. 

The fault with our supervision is not with the 
county superintendent, but with the system for 
which he can in no wise be held blameworthy. 
The system, I repeat, is wrong, and no one feels 
this more keenly than the efficient county super- 
intendent, who is trying to make educational 
progress. 

It has been shown by proper census data that 
there is one expert supervisor in our cities for 
every seventeen teachers engaged in the service. 
This, too, where there is only one grade to be 
taught by a teacher, who is supposed to be an 
expert. How is it in the country where seven 
grades are to be taught by a teacher who is not 
reckoned even well enough prepared to teach one 
grade in town? In most counties in Alabama, 
we have at least seventy-five or one hundred 
teachers to the supervising officer. If the town 
where every teacher under supervision can be 
seen in one day, requires one supervisor for every 
seventeen teachers, how many does the country 
need where only one school per day can satisfac- 
torily be visited and where only one day in the 
year has been all that the average county super- 
intendent has found time to give? The town 
teacher must know the subject matter, the prob- 
lems, and prepare the work of one grade; the 
rural teacher for seven. The town teacher is sur- 
rounded by a group of trained teachers with 
whom she may advise at any moment; the rural 
teacher stands alone. The supervisor is her only 
hope of relief. In the light of these conditions, 

14 



who will say that better supervision is not an ur- 
gent need in Alabama? 

The law empowering county boards of educa- 
tion to place the superintendent upon a salary 
basis and employ him for full time with a further 
provision which authorizes the employment of an 
adequate number of assistants, is a long, long 
step in the direction of efficient supervision. _ The 
mighty impetus which has come to educational 
interests in thirty-eight of our counties is proph- 
etic of the good that will come from this just 
law; but if we are unwilling to be satisfied with 
only a half loaf when we might have the whole; 
we shall have to depend upon compulsory rather 
than upon permissive legislation, before all the 
counties in Alabama are blessed with adequate 
supervision and supervisors that really supervise. 

A great railroad system considers every mile 
of its track of equal importance, equal in its val- 
uation, no matter how near or how remote from 
the centers of population and industry. It has 
the same amount and character of supervision 
for every mile of its roadbed and the same type 
and character of efficiency is insisted upon every- 
where. Is there any semblance of sense or rea- 
son in our failure to require our school system to 
be so valued,' so managed, and so supervised? 

It is useless to expect the highest quality of 
service from our county superintendents, however, 
until we have placed the office upon a profes- 
sional rather than upon a political basis. This 
done, make it possible for both men and women 
to be considered for the office; make the reten- 
tion of the office dependent upon good service; 
open the office as a career for which men and 
women would be warranted in making careful 
professional preparation, and supervision in rural 
Alabama will become as close and effective as 
that which urban Alabama now enjoys. Then 
only will farmers and teachers cease moving to 
the cities to secure better educational advantages 
and opportunities. 



In order to place county supervision where it 
ought to be, we shall require a county board of 
education composed of five members wisely se- 
lected from the county as a whole, and in such a 
way as not to change the personnel of the ma- 
jority of the board at any one election. This 
board should have ample authority to manage the 
schools of the county as a unit except those un- 
der separate city or town boards of education, 
appoint the county superintendent of education, 
and on his nomination, the assistant superinten- 
dents and special supervisors, the clerical help 
necessary to properly take care of the business 
of the office, and a competent teaching force. It 
should also be clothed with full power to abolish 
needless districts, reorganize the educational sys- 
tem of the county according to some rational 
plan, consolidate schools and transport pupils, 
and in every other way exercise a control as com- 
plete as that of any city board of education. 

To complete this work of supervision, we 
should have a state board of education very inti- 
mate in its relation to the county board of edu- 
cation, and exercising a legitimate sphere of 
power that will enable it to exert the same 
healthy and inspiring influence over the county 
board of education that the county board may 
rightly be expected to exercise over the schools. 
It should be organized upon a sufficiently broad 
basis to secure, so far as a central supervising 
agency can secure, the real results which the 
state sets before herself as the main business of 
education. 

But my time is slipping away, and I must pass 
on to that supreme need which conditions the 
success of all other efforts to exalt Alabama ed- 
ucationally, — better teachers, longer terms, com- 
pulsory education, better organization, better ad- 
ministration, better supervision, better schools, in 
fact, all depend upon those who bear the burdens, 
if burdens they be called, — the taxpayers of Ala- 
bama. 



16 



A careful examination of the constitutions and 
statutes of the several states of this Union, es- 
tablishes beyond peradventure the principle that 
a free elementary school education, at least, is 
the common birthright of every American child, 
and that the same should be provided by the gen- 
eral taxation of property without any considera- 
tion whatever as to whether the owner has chil- 
dren. In fact, more than sixty years ago it be- 
came a settled conviction that the "wealth of the 
state should be taxed to help educate the children 
of the state." 

If we could only break through the shell of in- 
dustrial activity and business enterprise which 
incrusts us, and contemplate the broad founda- 
tion upon which public education rests, what a 
delightful task it would be to convince the tax- 
payers of the state that the propaganda I am 
advocating tonight is worthy of their increased 
and continued support. 

We laud those generous men and women who 
out of their private fortunes endow colleges and 
universities for the training of men and women, 
but we forget to sing the praises of the thou- 
sands of patriotic citizens of Alabama who con- 
tribute of their means to the greatest of all uni- 
versities, — our public school system. If we could 
only get the taxpayer willingly to see that he is 
both a contributor to and a trustee of this great 
university, our public school, to which half-a- 
million Alabama boys and girls come up each 
year for instruction and help, we could be very, 
very sure that the school houses which dot the 
state from the Tennessee to the Gulf would never 
be closed for want of funds. 

Property has no inherent value; in fact, it is 
altogether conventional and the creature of edu- 
cation. When the savage roamed at will over our 
hills, here today and there tomorrow, they were 
all but valueless. The same rich mineral treas- 
ure was here, to be sure, and the same productive 
power was lying latent; but not until the mind of 

17 



this savage had been trained and his social in- 
stincts developed, could he strike the fields with 
his rod of science and bring forth streams of 
treasured wealth. 

Education itself, through the cultivation of 
primitive taste, has transformed the simple needs 
of man into intelligent desires, and along witji 
this change there has evolved the demand for the 
transformation of crude material into the finished 
product. It is not too much to claim that every 
bit of value which attaches to our property is the 
creature of education, and we cannot escape the 
conclusion that value, which is the creature of ed- 
ucation, should justly be taxed to maintain educa- 
tional endeavors. 

We cannot lose sight of the further fact that 
property would have but little, if any, value if it 
were not secure. Revert, if you please, to the 
time when might made right, and the strong arm 
could lay hold upon whatever it chose, and you 
will agree that the conscience and the judgment 
trained to regard the established property rights 
between mine and thine, are largely the creatures 
of education. The little red schoolhouse and not 
the official bluecoat, is the agency that has given, 
and still gives, to property its permanent value. 
The property of the state, therefore, should be 
taxed to educate the children of the state; for 
education is the author and the guarantor of that 
security without which property would be exceed- 
ingly unstable, if not absolutely worthless. 

In any discussion of revenue, we shall need to 
keep before us the assumption that the chief bus- 
iness of Alabama educationally is to give the best 
possible advantages to each child in the state, 
and that above all property considerations are 
the interests of her sons and daughters. 

While no two states have just the same laws 
for raising school revenue, there is so much in 
common that any one who will take tho pains to 
study the situation may easily arrive at some 
rather general and well-attested conclusions. 

18 



First of all, a general or state tax is abundant- 
ly justified by theory and practice. The condi- 
tions in any state are so different, the occupa- 
tions and industries so varied, and the wealth so 
unevenly distributed, that only by that pooling of 
effort which is made possible by a state tax, can 
any satisfactory approach be made toward equal- 
izing the burden of maintaining public education 
which is for the general good of all, and in no 
other way can those higher educationa] stan- 
dards be demanded on the part of all communi- 
ties which no state can fail to require and yet 
maintain her dignity in this present-day. era of 
intelligence. 

In the second place, it is also a widely accepted 
dogma that the state should distribute aid only 
to such a degree as will not destroy local interest 
and community initiative. It is easy to see that 
we have reached a point in Alabama when the 
amount received from the state tax is sufficient 
to give certain counties in which the percentage 
of negro children is excessive, and under the plan 
of apportionment now employed by certain 
boards of education, enough funds to enable them 
to run their schools comfortably for eight 
months, while in certain other counties, in which 
there are but few negro children, it is with great 
difficulty that the schools can continue for even 
five months. To give the former more money 
would be to encourage waste and to inhibit, if 
not crush out, local effort and interest. To fail to 
make provision for the latter is to keep its chil- 
dren forever handicapped in an unequal struggle. 
It is here that state aid reaches its equilibrium, 
and any effort to require the entire state to con- 
tribute to the less fortunate county will most 
likely be vigorously resisted by the more fortu- 
nate one. 

When this point has been reached, some other 
plan of raising revenue must be found. One way 
to even up conditions between these divergent 
localities would be by direct legislative appropri- 
ation, but the present condition of the treasury, 

19 



which makes impossible the release of an already 
large contingent appropriation, shows very clear- 
ly that no substantial increase in assistance can 
come from this source in the immediate future, 
and even if it were possible to secure such legis- 
lative appropriation, it would probably be neither 
best nor expedient to do so. 

We defend a state tax only on the ground that 
it furnishes the most equitable plan for equaliz- 
ing both the burdens and advantages of educa- 
tion. If we carry this theory of taxation upward 
to its logical conclusion, the time should come 
when the Federal Government will make an ap- 
propriation from its treasury for the support of 
elementary education. It is an anomaly that we 
have turned over to Congress our most fruitful 
sources of revenue and have imposed upon it the 
least expensive burdens. We boast to the world 
our love of peace, and yet of the eighteen billions 
of dollars expended by this nation from the time 
of the adoption of the Constitution to the close of 
the Civil War, sixteen and one-half billion were 
for war and the needs that grew out of war. 
Education is a national interest and should re- 
ceive national support. This would tend to equal- 
ize the disadvantage in wealth which has come 
upon the Southern States as a result of war and 
the presence of a large negro population. Even 
were our wealth proportionate to that of other 
states in other sections, it would still require a 
rate of taxation here one and one-half times as 
great to give to our children equal advantages 
because of the necessity of maintaining a dual 
system of schools. I repeat that we should re- 
ceive aid from the Federal Government, but only 
on condition that it can be so apportioned as to 
provide for its distribution by a state board of 
education or some other agency of co-ordinate 
rank that is in active and intelligent sympathy 
with the state's peculiar needs. This plan is also 
negative in that it makes no provision for local 
pride, endangers self-reliance and might encour- 
age extravagance, graft, and paternalism. 

20 



If we follow this theory of taxation downward, 
we cannot deny the right of local taxation to any 
county in Alabama that may wish to vote it. 
With the county as a unit, it will still be possible 
to equalize the difference in educational wealth 
over a relatively large area and thereby make 
the town and rural community, the rich and the 
poor district, co-operate to the degree that their 
mutual dependence and relationship justify. The 
most casual glance at the map of Alabama will 
show that naturally there are broad areas which 
will always support a large and wealthy popula- 
tion, while there are other regions where popula- 
tion will always be sparse and the per capita 
wealth relatively small. Again, the location of 
railroads, mines, mills, factories, and other arti- 
ficial agencies will tend to further increase the 
disparity between different sections. In all of 
these localities, there are children to be trained 
and schools must be run. The chief argument for 
public education is that it makes the strong help 
the weak. There will always be counties in Ala- 
bama to receive from the treasury more than 
they directly give. And it should be so, for only 
by such equalization of effort will it be possible 
to have fairly good schools throughout the state 
with no prohibitive or oppressive burdens on any 
one. 

I have rehearsed these things to show you that 
the inequalities that exist between two counties 
are no more real than those that exist between two 
communities in the same county, and it should 
also be borne in mind that the increase in the tax 
rate on the wealthy community is relatively small 
compared with the decrease on the poorer com- 
munity. There is hardly a county in the state in 
which fees or supplements of some kind are not 
required, and where this indirect plan of taxation 
is resorted to, it is probably never equitably dis- 
tributed and is a constant source of trouble. The 
county tax would largely remove these inequali- 
ties and obviate the differences and hard feelings 
that often grow out of 'them. It would do more; 

21 



it would build up a local pride which must al- 
ways be wanting so long as money is sent out 
from Montgomery, and by such a circuitous route 
that the source of it is lost sight of before it ever 
gets back home. 

At the Department of Superintendence in 
Richmond, the other day, I heard Dr. Wallace G. 
Buttrick of the General Education Board, say 
that the best thing his board had ever done for 
the people of the South was to help them help 
themselves. The twelve million dollars invested 
in the South, said he, had through its stimulative 
effect on our beneficence, grown to thirty-eight 
millions. The policy of this Board, financed by 
the wisest business men this country has ever 
produced, is a fine object-lesson to us in Alabama 
if we will only see it. Shall we longer tolerate 
a constitution which effectively bars the way to 
any substantial effort to self-help and to its at- 
tendant benefits? 

Over 72% of school revenue in the United 
States is raised by local taxation, the portion 
varying from 97% in Massachusetts to 24% in 
Alabama. We should note, too, that Alabama 
gets 70% of her funds from the state tax, while 
Massachusetts derives only 1% of her money in 
that way. And it is a still more significant fact 
that those states that stand highest in educa- 
tional qualifications, raise at least half of their 
funds from local sources, while those furthest 
down the scale, and nearest Alabama, raise most 
of their funds in some other way. The justice, 
the wisdom, and the necessity of local taxation 
for educational purposes sufficient to supplement 
the state fund and large enough to encourage a 
due measure of local pride and initiative, cannot 
be successfully combated by any patriotic 
American citizen in the light of American experi- 
ence and practice. 

What I have already said justifies the conclu- 
sion that we must give to the local community, 
city or rural, the further right to vote upon itself 

22 



a modest tax for building and equipment. In a 

llt}Tnf l erWhel ? ing ^^ or[ty of ^stances, the 
people of the country districts must resort to the 
uncertain and antiquated plan of private sub- 

W P A° nS , S° r b -? Iding Sch0 °l houses ^nd purchas- 
ing school furniture, or else go on using as school 
homes for their children old shacks and discarded 
church-houses which are uncomfortable, Tnsight- 
ly, and insanitary. & 

But no system of revenue is complete that fails 

as ?r/nl% aS ^°° d machiner y ^r its distribution 
as it does for its provision. Our state tax is an 
portioned to the counties on the basis of school 

S t tl0I V nd + the law sa ^ that this shall I be 
apportioned in turn to the several districts so as 
to maintain the schools as nearlv as practical)!! 
for the same length of term. This plan mav 
work equitably within the countv, and should^ 
so, but usually does not. The practice is all ton 
Prevalent of giving the lion's share o ' the funds 

iab e ano™ Ch ?° IS &nd leaving but the mos * Pit- 
iable allowance for our negro schools. This cus- 
tom will no doubt continue until driven out bv a 
righteous public opinion, which is slowly but sire- 
y crystallizing. It may be further abused in That 
it places no premium upon effort, except the one to 

EauIe^ftPfalff't 6 ^ ° n the c^us Hst; Ind 
to a couitv tl«t v glVS ^ more consideration 
enrolls 7^/ y nf ,11 ^f an , f g h t-months' term and 

ft does to I hi ™ V C ^ lldren - in the schools than 
Jr,™H > ? coun ty that maintains only a five- 

months' term and enrolls but 50% of its children 
t is purely negative in its influence in stirnS 
ing local pride and initiative. With our countv 
boards of education properly and wisely selected 
from the county as a whole, it may be that the 
state funds will be equitably distributed but it 
will always be done without that stimulus to com 
munity effort that might be had if a more r™- 
tional basis were found. 

,. \ d ° n?* wish to argue that our present nlan nf 

bta r evised g but e i t te /^ iS - the "-tThaftoVd' 
De devised, but I am of the opinion that inasmuch 

23 



county authorities it „ , S T " ov<!r to th « 

«ot7„ e V„ ,ab 4Ti&f K f <^ °™ 5 

the law and we shall fin if it ™? ny u rate ' this is 

until we haveTrordeLd1u^onSonl\ C f h Tf e 
toward an inferior v*oo ~l a Jt pt ons of dut Y 

shall not nool to chan?, °Th« ^i.f ,""{'• ™ 
not emplo^some other th,A\ S t0 ° ffer if we d ° 

saxftaSt sbsSm 

of school children tu / Y attendance 

24 



JSe^eLthereT^ t Th f re are *°™ relatively 
could be brought ClthlT k™ fiftee " childre " 
which thirty coud usta S p 9 3l I' are others in 
either case, one teacher 1 1 y be C0 . I:l ected. In 
are many one-ro 0m ,pL«£ - d be re< 3 uir ed. There 
ties in whhfh more than fiftv T.h* ° f ° Ur coun " 
taught by one te*rW ™ I children are being 

not enough money and iiW 7 beca - use there w 
sible thrfugh^a countv t'^f 6 ," is not P°s- 
munity to Wvide a^ extra° tScTer^ Th * T" 
for all these years has hZt !• •?' , The P Ian 
and erect another ti t0 dmd 1 the dist »ct 
with state aTd The teach-^' ■ a " d oftentimes 
place the emphasis ,™ .t aS1S Y ould ten d to 
gether andTd P ding another tp e n P l ng th «^ool to- 
restrictions as ; to s?ze and ^ ' S nd if Certain 
school were placed on a ? d ,^ lstance from another 

the plan wouW work wefl. ' 1S " doubt that 

tain h p e r th c e en t Pa „ T \ , f ^ f an means that a cer- 
on th P e e bas?s of the totef^ Ul l be distri buted 

to be well educated than fL / ear i! S more Iike] y 
only 100 davs Thi io+! ne who attends for 

give due sSus To locals Ca + USe ' theh > Would 
attendance "and tWW i ^ to , lncrease school 
In my opinion if w & £ g the ? the Sch ° o1 term - 
coaxing people into Z if a ^ ng Wav towa rd 
thereby create a Doi.„ft PUP J ls * t0 Sch ° o1 a "d 
education. DWdiSffi couTtylvT c °"? P + UIsor v 
Parts, as it were and tnn^T • fund lnto two 
parts on the basis «f ti,t Pport L onm § one of these 
Ployed, and the other on itt* ° f H achers em " 
days attended by all the nun^> 1S °^ the total 
me would be an ideal nf n P T ii!* T uLd seem to 



25 



terms, and the country districts would be encour- 
aged to lengthen theirs and to employ an ade- 
quate teaching force, and along with it all would 
go that pooling of interest and of effort that 
their mutual dependence would justify. 

But even when we have levied a three-mill 
state tax and have apportioned it to the several 
counties according to the school population, and 
this in turn has been given to the districts so as 
to enable them to continue their schools for ap 
proximately uniform terms; when we have voted 
at least a three-mill county tax and apportioned 
it to the schools on the basis of the number of 
teachers employed and the aggregate days of 
attendance of all the pupils; and when we have 
further given to each district of reasonable area 
the right to tax itself to provide school buildings 
and equipment, there will still be several new but 
desirable advantages, 'as, for example, the con- 
solidation of schools and the transportation of 
pupils, which the state should foster and encour- 
age. In order to do this work, a certain reasona- 
ble and direct appropriation from the state treas- 
ury should be made available for the State De- 
partment of Education, or preferably, the State 
Board of Education, to expend in getting these in- 
fant enterprises going. 

The plans and policies which I have advocated 
here tonight are not ideal and they may not even 
be best; but in the light of twelve years of faith- 
ful study, and from an impartial and unpreju- 
diced viewpoint, and with no pet theory to prove 
and no distasteful one to exploit, I do believe 
that they furnish a platform upon which the state 
as a whole can get together without any too 
great sacrifice on the part of any section, and 
with a reasonable assurance and hope that we 
may write them into our organic and statutory 
laws. 

There are just two reasons why after all the 
agitation we have had on local taxation for twen- 
ty-five years, we have made so little progress to- 

26 



ward securing it, that are of especial concern to 
you as teachers: First, the child never hears the 
subject of taxation discussed except in the home at 
tax-paying time, and then in the most censorious 
fashion. The child has it ingrained into him 
that taxation is an evil that is only to be borne if 
it cannot be resisted. If for a quarter of a cen- 
tury our teachers had been explaining to their 
pupils that it is a public duty and a privilege to 
pay a tax in support of the Government, rather 
than pass it over as we have done with the mere 
academic treatment of the subject contained in 
the ordinary Civil Government textbook, we 
would be rid of the false assessment valuations 
that are so prevalent and it would be entirely 
unnecessary for me to have discussed this sub- 
ject with you tonight. The second reason grows 
out of the fact that as teachers we have not been 
able to agree upon a policy and then loyally work 
for it; and I suspect that if we wait until our 
own ideals become the basis for agreement, the 
relief we need will be delayed at least another 
generation. 

While it is in no wise binding upon you to ac- 
cept without question the legislation I would ad- 
vocate, I do hope you will weigh the matter well 
in the light of the whole state's needs. If what 
I have said is in the main true, it will certainly 
not be in good taste for any educator or any 
friend of education to make sentiment against it 
by inflammatory speeches and arguments before 
those whose minds are already prejudiced against 
taxation, and whose opportunity of studying this 
problem is comparatively narrow. As for myself, 
I have an abiding faith in the people, and I know 
that in some good day, right will prevail. I have 
equally as decided a conviction that that which 
is commended by educational leaders everywhere 
cannot be far wrong. 

Local taxation, my friends, is coming in Ala- 
bama. Whether it shall come at the next legis- 
lature, or at the next, or the next, or the next, 
depends in a large measure upon your own activ- 

27 



ity. If we ever get it, we shall have to fight for 

n b,ttl^ hbertle , S W ^ ich have almost b ^ won 
m battles over taxation, can onlv be T>rpqprv*J 

by struggles of the same sort, and I beg you to 
night to tiptoe a little, look over and be^nd the 
confine^ of all narrow and selfish interests ceasp 
distrusting the taxpayers of our common state! 
stop trying to preserve the antiquated and the 
obsolescent, and unite to give to Alabama an 
equitable and an adequate school revenue system 
Will you not consecrate yourselves anew tonight 
to the cause of education and pledge to Alabama 
efforts 7 and UnSemSh ind ^ idual ^d unH™d 

"Little, little, can I give thee, 
Alabama, mother mine; 

But that little— hand, brain, spirit- 
All I have and am are thine. 

lake, O take the gift and giver, 

lake and serve thyself with me, 
Alabama, Alabama, 

I will aye be true to thee! 

Brave and pure thy men and women 
Better this than corn and wine, 

Make us worthy, God in heaven, 
Of this goodly land of Thine; 

Hearts as open as our doorways, 

Liberal hands and spirits free, 
Alabama, Alabama, 

We will aye be true to thee!" 



^ 



^ /.£X 



V 



<( 




D. OF D. 
JUN 4 1914 



M 



MORE REVENUE FOR EDUCATION 
I ~ t IN ALABAMA 

/w rf (7* & 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



U 




AN ADDRESS 

Delivered at the Annual Meeting of t 
Alabama Educational Association 
Birmingham, Alabama, 
April 9-11, 1914 



WM. F. FEAGIN 

Superintendent of Education 
Montgomery, Alabama 



A Survey of the State's Educational Condij 
and Suggestions for Their Betterment 



